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Rom. Not for the world.
Oh! it will strike disease into your bones,
Beyond the cure of physick; drink your blood,
Rob you of all your rest, contract your sight,
Leave you no eyes but to see misery,

And of your own; nor speech, but to wish thus,
Would I had perished in the prison's jaws,
From whence I was redeemed! 'Twill wear you old,
Before you have experience in that art
That causes your affliction.

Char. Thou dost strike

A deathful coldness to my heart's high heat,
And shrinkest my liver like the calenture.
Declare this foe of mine, and life's, that like
A man I may encounter and subdue it.
It shall not have one such effect in me
As thou denouncest: With a soldier's arm,
If it be strength, I'll meet it:

If a fault belonging to my mind, I'll cut it off
With mine own reason as a scholar should.
Speak, though it make me monstrous.
Rom. I'll die first.

Farewell! continue merry, and high heaven
Keep your wife chaste.

Char. Hum!-Stay, and take this wolf

Why stand you silent thus? What cold dull

phlegm,

As if you had no drop of choler mixed
In your whole constitution, thus prevails,
To fix you now thus stupid, hearing this?
Char. Ha! ha! ha!

Rom. Laugh you! E'en so did your wife,
And her indulgent father.

Char. They were wise.

Would'st have me be a fool?

Rom. No, but a man.

Char. There is no dram of manhood to suspect,
On such thin airy circumstance as this;
Mere compliment and courtship. Was this tale
The hideous monster which you so concealed?
Away, thou curious impertinent,

And idle searcher of such lean nice toys!
Go, thou seditious sower of debate!

Fly to such matches, where the bridgroom doubts
He holds not worth enough to countervail
The virtue and the beauty of his wife.

Thou buzzing drone, that 'bout my ears dost
hum,

To strike thy rankling sting into my heart,
Whose venom, time nor medicine could assuage;

Out of my breast, that thou hast lodged there, or Thus do I put thee off, and, confident
For ever lose ine.

Rom. Lose not, sir, yourself,
And I will venture-so the door is fast.

[Locks the door.
Now, noble Charalois, collect yourself;
Summon your spirits; muster all your strength
That can belong to man; sift passion
From every vein, and, whatsoe'er ensues,
Upbraid not me hereafter, as the cause of
Jealousy, discontent, slaughter and ruin :
Make me not parent to sin :--You will know
This secret that I burn with?

Char. Devil on't,

What should it be? Romont, I hear
My wife's continuance of chastity.

Rom. There was no hurt in that.
Char. Why, do you know

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A likelihood or possibility unto the contrary?
Rom. I know it not, but doubt it; these the
grounds.

The servant of your wife now, young Novall,
The son unto your father's enemy,
(Which aggravates my presumption the more)
I have been warned of, touching her; nay, scen
them

Tie heart to heart, one in another's arms,
Multiplying kisses, as if they meant
To pose arithmetic, or whose eyes would
Be first burnt out with gazing on the other's.
I saw their months engender, and their palms
Glewed, as if love had locked them; their words
flow

And melt each other's, like two circling flames,
Where chastity, like a phoenix, methought,
burned,

But left the world nor ashes nor an heir.

In mine own innocency and desert,
Dare not conceive her so unreasonable,
To put Novall in balance against me,
An upstart, craned up to the height he has.
Hence, busy body! thou'rt no friend to me,
That must be kept to a wife's injury.

Rom. I'st possible?-Farewell fine honest man!
Sweet tempered lord, adieu! What apoplexy
Hath knit sense up? Is this Romont's reward?.
Bear witness, the great spirit of thy father,
With what a healthful hope I did administer
This potion, that hath wrought so virulently!
I not accuse thy wife of act, but would
Preveut her precipice to thy dishonour,
Which now thy tardy sluggishness will admit !
Would I had seen thee graved with thy great
sire,

Ere live to have men's marginal fingers point.
At Charalois, as a lamented story.

An emperor put away his wife for touching
Another man; but thou wouldst have thine
tasted,

And keep her, I think. Phoh! I am a fire
To warm a dead man, that waste out myself.
Blood!--What a plague, a vengeance, is't to me,
If you will be a cuckold? Here I shew
A sword's point to thee; this side you may shun,
Or that, the peril; if you will run on,
I cannot help it.

Char. Didst thou never see me
Angry, Romont?

Rom. Yes, and pursue a foe
Like lightning.

Char. Prithee see me so no more.

I can be so again.-Put up thy sword,
And take thyself away, lest I draw mine,

Rom Come, fright your foes with this, sir; I For nothing, from her birth's free liberty, am your friend,

And dare stand by you thus.

Char. Thou'rt not my friend;

Or being so, thou'rt mad.-I must not buy
Thy friendship at this rate; had I just cause,
Thou knowest I durst pursue such injury
Through fire, air, water, earth, nay, were they all
Shuffled again to chaos; but there's none.
Thy skill, Romont, consists in camps, not courts.
Farewell, uncivil man! let's meet no more.
Here our long web of friendship I untwist.
Shall I go whine, walk pale, and lock my wife

SCENE I.

That opened mine to me? Yes; if I do-
The name of cuckold then dog me with scorn.
I am a Frenchman, no Italian born. [Exit.

Rom. A dull Dutch rather :-Fall and cool my
blood!

Boil not in zeal of thy friend's hurt so high,
| That is so low, and cold himself in it! woman,
How strong art thou! how easily beguiled!
How thou dost rack us by the very horns!
Now wealth, I see, change manners and the man.
Something I must do, mine own wrath to assuage,
And note my friendship to an after-age. [Erit.

ACT IV.

Enter NovALL jun. as newly dressed, a Taylor, Barber, Perfumer, LILADAM, AYMER, and Page. Nov. jun. Mend this a little: Pox! thou hast burnt me. Oh! fie upon it!-O lard! he has made me smell, for all the world, like a flax, or a red-headed woman's chamber: Powder, powder, powder.

Perf. Oh, sweet lord!

[Novall sits in a chair, barber orders his
hair, perfumer gives powder, tailor
sets clothes.

Page. That's his perfumer.
Tayl. Oh, dear lord!
Page. That's his taylor.

Nov. jun. Monsieur Liladam! Aymer! how allow you the model of these clothes?

Aymer. Admirably, admirably; oh, sweet lord! assuredly it is pity the worms should eat thee.

Page. Here is a fine cell; a lord, a taylor, a perfumer, a barber, and a pair of monsieurs: Three to three, as little wit in the one, as honesty in the other. S'foot I'll into the country again learn to speak truth, drink ale, and converse with my father's tenants: here I hear nothing all day, but-upon my soul! as I am a gentleman, and an honest man!

Aymer. I vow and affirm, your taylor must needs be an expert geometrician; he has the longitude, latitude, altitude, profundity, every dimension of your body, so exquisitely.-Here is a lace laid as directly, as if truth were a taylor. Page. That were a miracle.

Lited. With a hair's breadth's error, there is a shoulder-piece cut, and the base of a pickadille in puncto.

Aymer. You are right, monsieur, his vestments sit as if they grew upon him; or art had wrought them on the same loom, as nature framed his lordship; as if your taylor were deeply read in astrology, and had taken measure of your honourable body, with a Jacob's staff, an ephime

rides.

Tayl. I am bound to ye, gentlemen!

Puge. You are deceived; they will be bound to you: You must remember to trust them none.

neat artificer, give the devil his due. Nov. jun. Nay, 'faith, thou art a reasonable,

Page. Aye, if he would but cut the coat according to the cloth still.

Nov. jun. I now want only my mistress's approbation, who is, indeed, the most polite punctual queen of dressing in all Burgundy. Pah, and makes all other young ladies appear as if they came from board last week out of the country. Is it not true, Liladam?

Lilad. True, my lord! as if any thing your lordship could say, could be otherwise than true.

Nov. jun. Nay, o' my soul, it is so; what fouler object in the world, than to see a young, fair, handsome beauty, unhandsomely dighted, and incongruently accoutered; or a hopeful chevalier, unmethodically appointed, in the external ornaments of nature? For, even as the index tells us the contents of stories, and directs to the particular chapters, even so does the outward habit and superficial order of garments (in man or woman), give us a taste of the spirit, and demonstratively point (as it were a manual note from the margin) all the internal quality and habiliment of the soul; and there cannot be a more evident, palpable, gross manifestation of poor, degenerate, dunghilly blood and breeding, than a rude, unpolished, disordered, and slovenly outside.

Page. An admirable lecture! ah, all you gallants, that hope to be saved by your clothes, edify, edify!

Aymer. By the lard, sweet lard! thou deservest a pension of the state.

Page. O' the taylors; two such lords were able to spread taylors over the face of a whole kingdom.

Nov. jun. 'Pox o' this glass! It flatters.—I could find in my heart to break it.

Page. O, save the glass, my lord! and break their heads: They are the great flatterers, I assure you.

Aymer. Flatters! detracts, impairs.-Yet, put it bye,

Lest thou, dear lord, Narcissus-like, should doat
Upon thyself, and die; and rob the world
Of Nature's copy, that she works forms by.
Lilad. Oh, that I were the infanta queen of
Europe!

Who, but thyself, sweet lord, should marry me! Nov. jun. I marry? Were there a queen of the world, not I.

Wedlock? No, padlock; horse-lock; I wear spurs [He capers.

To keep it off my heels; yes, my Aymer!
Like a free, wanton jennet in the meadows,
I look about, and neigh, take hedge and ditch,
Feed in my neighbour's pastures; pick my
choice
Of all their fair maned mares: But, married once,
A man is staked or pounded, and cannot graze
Beyond his own hedge

Enter PONTALIER and MALOTIN.

Pont. I have waited, sir,

Three hours to speak with you, and take it not well,

Such magpies are admitted, whilst I dance
Attendance.

Lilad. Magpies! What do ye take me for! Pont. A long thing, with a most unpromising face.

Aymer. I'll never ask him what he takes me for.

Malot. Do not, sir!

For he'll go near to tell you.

Pont. Art not thou a barber-surgeon!
Barb. Yes, sirrah! why?

Pont. My lord is sorely troubled with two scabs.

Lilad. Aymer. Humph

Pont. I prythee, cure him of them.
Nov. jun. Pish! no more;

Thy gall sure is overflown: These are my council,
And we were now in serious discourse.

Pont. Of perfume and apparel. Can you rise, And spend five hours in dressing-talk with these? Nov. jun. Thou wouldst have me be a dog: Up, stretch, and shake,

And ready for all day.

Pont. Sir! would you be
More curious in preserving of your honour
Trim, 'twere more manly. I am come to wake
Your reputation from this lethargy

You let it sleep in; to persuade, importune,
Nay, to provoke you, sir! to call to account
This colonel Romont, for the foul wrong,
Which, like a burden, he hath laid on you,
And, like a drunken porter, you sleep under.
'Tis all the town-talk; and, believe, sir,
If your tough sense persist thus, you are undone,
Utterly lost; you will be scorned and baffled
By every lacquey; season now your youth
With one brave thing, and it shall keep the odour
Even to your death, beyond; and on your tomb,
Scent like sweet oils and frankincense: Sir! this
life,

Which once you saved, I never since counted mine;

I borrowed it of you, and now will pay it;
I tender you the service of my sword
To bear your challenge; if you'll write, your fate
I'll make mine own! Whate'er betide you, I,
That have lived by you, by your side will die.

Nov. jun. Ha! ha! wouldst have me challenge poor Romont:

Fight with close breeches? Thou may'st think I dare not;

Do not mistake me, coz: I'm very valiant;
But valour shall not make me such an ass.
What use is there of valour now-a-days?
'Tis sure, or to be killed, or to be hanged.
Fight thou as thy mind moves thee; 'tis thy trade:
Thou hast nothing else to do. Fight with Ro-

mont?

No, I'll not fight under a lord.

Pont. Farewell, sir! I pity you. Such loving lords walk their dead honour's graves, For no companions fit, but fools and knaves. Come, Malotin. [Exeunt Pontalier and Malotin. Enter ROMONT.

Lilad. 'Sfoot, Colbrand, the low giant! Aymer. He has brought a battle in his face; let's go.

Page. Colbrand, do you call him? He'll make some of you smoke, I believe. Rom. By your leave, sirs! Aymer. Are you a concert? Rom. Do you take me for

A fidler? you are deceived: Look. I'll

pay you. [Kicks him. Page. It seems he knows you one, he bumfid

dles you so.

Lilad. Was there ever so base a fellow?
Aymer. A rascal.

Lilad. A most uncivil groom!

Aymer. Offer to kick a gentleman in a noble

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Enter BELLAPERT.

Nov. jun. What mean you, sir? My people! Ram. Your boy is gone,

[Locks the door.

And door is locked, yet for no hurt to you,
But privacy: call up your blood again, sir!
And therefore come without more circumstance,
Tell me how far the passages have gone
Twixt you and your fair mistress Beaumelle.
Tell me the truth, and, by my hope of Heaven,
It never shall go farther.

Nov. jun. Tell you? Why, sir?

Are you my confessor ?

Rom. I will be your confounder, if you do not. [Draws a pocket dagger.

Stir not, nor spend your voice.
Nov. jun. What will you do?
Rom. Nothing but line your brain-pan, sir!
with lead,

If you not satisfy me suddenly.

I am desperate of my life, and command yours. Nov. jun. Hold! hold! I'll speak. I vow to Heaven and you,

She's yet untouched, more than her face and hands.

I cannot call her innocent; for, I yield,
On my solicitous wooing she consented,
Where time and place met opportunity,
To grant me all requests.

Rom. But, may I build

On this assurance?

Nov. jun. As upon your faith.
Rom. Write this, sir! nay, you must.

[Draws inkhorn and paper.

Nov. jun. Pox of this gun.
Rom. Withall, sir! you must swear, and put
your oath

Under your hand, (shake not) ne'er to frequent
This lady's company; nor ever send
Token, or message, or letter, to incline
This (too much prone already) yielding lady.
Nov. jun. 'Tis done, sir!

Rom. Let me see-this first is right;
And here you wish a sudden death may light
Upon your body, and hell take your soul,
If ever more you see her but by chance,
Much less allure her. Now, my lord! your hand.
Nov. jun. My hand to this?'

Rom. Your heart else, I assure you.
Nov. jun. Nay, there 'tis.

Rom. So, keep this last article

Of your faith given, and instead of threatenings,

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Char. I love a friend,

So long as he continues in the bounds
Prescribed by friendship; but, when he usurps
Too far what is proper to myself,
And puts the habit of a governor on,

I must and will preserve my liberty.

But speak of something else; this is a theme

I take no pleasure in: What's this Aymer?

Whose voice for song, and excellent knowledge in
The chiefest parts of music, you bestow
Such praises on?

Beaum. He is a gentleman,

(For so his quality speaks him) well received Among our greatest gallants; but yet holds His main dependance from the young lord No

vall.

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But cries of yielding enemies, neighing of horses. Clashing of armour, loud shouts, drums and trumpets:

Nor, on the other side, in favour of it,
Affirm the world was made by musical discord,
Or that the happiness of our life consists
In a well-varied note upon the lute:

I love it to the worth of it, and no farther.
But let us see this wonder.

Beaum. He prevents my calling of him.

Enter AYMER.

Aymer. Let the coach be brought

To the back gate, and serve the banquet up:

My good lord Charalois! I think
my house
Much honoured in your presence.
Char. To have means

To know you better, sir, has brought me hither,
A willing visitant; and you'll crown my welcome
In making me a witness to your skill,
Which, crediting from others, I admire.

Aymer. Had I been one hour sooner made acquainted

With your intent, my lord, you should have found

me

Better provided: Now, such as it is,

Pray you grace with your acceptance. Beaum. You are modest.

Aymer. Begin the last new air.

Char. Shall we not see them?

On all advantage take thy life, and justly,
This sword, my father's sword, that ne'er was
drawn

But to a noble purpose, shall not now
Do the office of a hangman; I reserve it
To right mine honour, not for a revenge
So poor, that though with thee it should cut off
Thy family, with all that are allied

To thee in lust or baseness, 'twere still short of
All terms of satisfaction. Draw!

Nov. jun. I dare not:

I have already done you too much wrong
To fight in such a cause.

Char. Why, darest thou neither

Be honest coward, nor yet valiant knave?
In such a cause! come, do not shame thyself;

Aymer. This little distance from the, instru- Such whose blood's wrongs, or wrong done to

ments

Will to your ears convey the harinony

With more delight.

Char. I'll not contend.

Aymer. You are tedious.

By this means shall I with one banquet please Two companies, those within, and these gulls here. [Music, and a song above.

Beaumel. within. Ha! ha! ha!

Char. How's this? It is my lady's laugh, most certain

When I first pleased her, in this merry language, She gave me thanks.

Beaum. How like you this?

Char. 'Tis rare

Yet I may be deceived, and should be sorry,
Upon uncertain suppositions, rashly
To write myself in the black list of those
I have declaimed against, and to Romont.
Aymer. I would he were well off. Perhaps
your lordship

Likes not these sad tunes: I have a new song,
Set to a lighter note, may please you better;
Tis called The Happy Husband.
Char. Pray sing it.

Song below. At the end of the song, BEAU-
MELLE within.

Beaumel. Ha! ha! 'tis such a groom.

themselves,

Could never heat, are yet, in the defence
Of their whores, daring. Look on her again.
You thought her worth the hazard of your soul,
And yet stand doubtful, in her quarrel, to
Venture your body.

Beaum. No, he fears his clothes

More than his flesh.

Char. Keep from me: Guard thy life;
Or, as thou hast lived like a goat, thou shalt
Die like a sheep.

Nov. jun. Since there is no remedy,
Despair of safety now in me prove courage!
[They fight. Novall is slain.
Char. How soon weak wrong's o'erthrown!
Lend me your hand;

Bear this to the caroch-Come, you have taught

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Pont. I was bound to seek you, sir. Rom. And, had you found me

Aymer. Ah!

In any place but in the street, I should

That women, when they're pleased, cannot hold, Have done, not talked to you. Are you the capBut must laugh out.

Enter NovALL jun. CHARALOIS, BEAUMELLE, and BELLAPERT.

Nov. jun. Help! save me! murder! murder!

Bella. Undone for ever!

Char. Oh, my heart!

Hold yet a little. Do not hope to escape
By flight, it is impossible: Though I might

tain?

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